Rawlings Conservatory – Part III

The poinsettias are the seasonal show at the Rawlings Conservatory this time of year….and they can be purchased too! They fill every nook and cranny of space in the entrance and the first room past….lining the permanent beds

And, this year, filling and surrounding a donkey cart.

There are pinks and reds and white and white/red combinations.

The one that looked most different to me this year was an off-white variety that has smaller flowers but lots of curly petals that almost covered the center.

I also looked for the green veined white leaves or petals – not sure which one they were.

I saved this ‘part’ to post about until last….since it was the most Christmasy….we’re getting closer every day.

Previous posts about the Rawlings Conservatory: Cactus Room, Tropical Room.

Rawlings Conservatory – Part II

I posted about the cactus room at the Rawlings Conservatory last week. Today it about the experience of the tropics room. It a warm moist place – perfect for a change of environment on a cold blustery winter day.

It’s not only the temperature and humidity that is different from the outdoors. It’s the colors of the foliage. Everything outside has faded to winter drabness here – while the tropical room is full of color – dominated by green. There were only a few things in bloom and I focused on them for my photography.

My favorite memory of the room was not about the place itself but a mother with a young child (probably 6-12 months old) in a stroller. I commented that her child really seemed to be enjoying the green – wide eyed and alert. What followed was a very pleasant conversation about how different life is when not constrained by a career based schedule. She had stopped working when her child was born and did not plan to return for a couple of years…and I retired. We’re both enjoying this time of our lives and the choices we’ve made to fill our days. The little girl in the stroller seemed to enjoy listening to us talk too!

The tropical room was the part of the Rawlings Conservatory that reminded me the most of the Brookside Conservatory. It has similar plants (like the Bird-of-Paradise below). One difference: the water feature at the Rawlings Conservatory has a water feature that is deep enough that it is stocked with goldfish and there is a dispenser where you can purchase fish food.

Rawlings Conservatory – Part I

Earlier this week, my husband and I made the trek from our house up to the Rawlings Conservatory in Baltimore. We had seen it in passing 15-20 years ago when we were making trips to the Baltimore Zoo when our daughter was young – but we had never stopped and gone inside. It’s not as big as the Longwood Conservatives and is probably about a 100 years older than the Brookside Gardens Conservatories. It was a morning well spent. This post is about the desert room of the Conservatory and will be followed (eventually) by two more posts about the tropical room and the poinsettias.

There was an aloe in bloom. The color attracted my attention at first.

When I zoomed in for a closer look – the coloring became even more distinctive.

Periodically some rocks with rusty swirls were positioned among the cactus…adding other colors to the room. It reminded me of looking down on the terrain of some of the western US from an airplane window.

There was a tiny clump of cactus with seed pods about 1/4 inch across nestled in the spines. There were two elderly women that spotted them and made sure I saw them.

And then I continued my project photographing cactus spines. There were some different types than I had photographed before.

• Where the spines are along the edge of the pad like stem
• Where there are ‘leaves’ growing between the spines
• Pink pines on one, yellow spines on another, and white spines
• Different colors of spines (does it have something to do with the age of the spine?)

They all look so different from other plants...fodder for science fiction writers imaging aliens.

Baltimore Inner Harbor in September 1984

I found some pictures of my very first trip to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. It was in 1984 – a little over a year since we’d moved to the east coast. We were still living in Virginia so it was a day trip for us to see Baltimore. It’s hard to internalize that it was over 30 years ago!

It must have been a great day for being out on the water based on the number of boats. The rental paddle boats were simpler then that the ones that are there now.

The National Aquarium had been open for a few years (according to Wikipedia it opened in August 1981) and was expanded in the early 2000s – so this show what it was like before the expansion.

We were making a lot of day trips and exploring the Mid-Atlantic area back in the mid-80s. My husband was working on a post doc and we weren’t sure how low we would live in the Washington DC area --- but we ended up staying. Now we favor the natural areas over the urban attractions of museums and tours.

American Craft Show in Baltimore

Yesterday we made the trek into Baltimore for the American Craft Show that was held there this weekend. We had heard about it from the artists (2400 Fahrenheit) we’d purchased some pieces from in Hawaii. There were an overwhelming number of beautiful things at the show: glass, clothing and accessories, jewelry, wooden art and utensils, metal pieces…I am pretty sure that even though we tried to be methodical and go down every aisle the we missed some of it.

Jewelry seemed to have the most booths. I got a set of copper jewelry (cuff, earrings, and ring) from a Baltimore artist – Allison Fomich. She does botanical motifs so I’ll probably buy more pieces the next time I happen upon her at a local event.

The red and black earrings are from a west coast artist --- they are more 3D than most of my other earrings and they are colors I wear frequently.

The last item I got was an eyeglasses case. My husband was always irritated when my old case snapped shut so he is the one that strongly suggested this fabric case that will be silent!

Of course – we had some narrow misses on more expensive items (larger art glasses pieces). We didn’t find a piece that we both agreed was the perfect one for our mantle.

On the way home I took a picture of a clock tower than I hadn’t noticed before – probably because I have only been taking pictures from the car window recently. It is the Bromo-Seltzer tower and was built originally opened in 1911. It was the tallest building in Baltimore from then until 1923! Check out the Wikipedia article about it here.